Passage 2 Whether leaders are born or made has been a subject of intense debate almost since the beginning of time. But, with current management theory indicating that “we are all leaders now,” the issue is assuming ever greater importance. In The Leadership Gene , Cyril Levicki makes a telling contribution without really coming down on one side or the other. Although he leans towards the “born” rather than “made” school, he comes up with a sort of compromise based on the premise that “leaders need to be born with a set of genetic characteristics which create the raw materials from which leadership may be nurtured.” Adopting the biological terminology that has become fashionable in the management world, he adds that “if the gene of leadership is housed within the leader at birth, the chromosomes ( 染色体 ) form the threads of the leader’s development as a child and during the early evolution of their psyche ( 自我 ).” The gene is only the starting point, “the vital progenitor ( 祖先 ) of many ingredients that have to be in place before the creation of a quality leader is completed.” Mr. Levicki, a former academic and consultant, identifies seven chromosomes — youthful energy, courageous circumspection, winning ways, balance, intuition, moral fibre and leadership itself. Mr. Levicki’s book is intended to help more people achieve their potential, on the grounds that there are not many good leaders around. But he stresses that the “chromosomes” only reinforce the notion that some people have that vital something, and therefore that readers should not think that just by going through all the exercises in the book they can necessarily achieve great things. He does not go so far as those who reckon ( 认为 ) they can predict with certainty how far leaders would rise in organisations but says that “you can foretell, by and large, that a person has or doesn’t have the ‘leadership gene’.”